Women represent a growing segment of the family forest owner population in the United States. This article seeks to identify how women in the eastern U.S. navigate forest land management. Inductive ...coding led to the development of five prominent themes: connections to the land, stewardship ethic, personal challenges, connections to others, and educational/programmatic challenges. Our research suggests that women have a strong connection to their land with diverse interests and objectives. Their stories challenge the current definition of engaged landowners and represent a need for programs and policies that support passive and more holistic active stewardship options.
Developing scenarios to explore possible environmental futures is a widely used tool in social-ecological research. Scenario planners working in environmental systems increasingly enlist stakeholders ...to help develop scenarios, but effectively integrating stakeholder participation with scenario analyses and modeling remains a challenge. Using the New England Landscape Futures project as a case study, we explore how a method for codesigning a scenario elicitation process can be used to help balance the needs of both stakeholders and scientists. To illustrate the design process, we document eight influential decisions made with stakeholder input, describe the competing demands that we negotiated, and outline the rationale for the selected approach. We find that three priorities drove most of our decisions: maximizing stakeholder involvement in the scenario development process, efficient use of stakeholder time, and research needs. The outcome was a robust, intense, and highly structured one-day scenario development protocol that engaged stakeholders in the full scenario development process from initial orientation and identification of driving forces through to fleshedout scenarios narratives and quantitative inputs able to inform land-use simulations. Its deployment in six state-specific workshops was successful in eliciting divergent scenarios that stakeholders perceived as being plausible and relevant. Stakeholder responses to the process were positive, though also reflected the compromises made during the codesign process. Research needs were largely met, though initial expectations likely exceeded what could reasonably be elicited from a stakeholder group in one day. Our experiences highlight the importance of process design and how selection of scenario development techniques should follow from the project objectives, problem context, and stakeholder preferences for engagement activities. The use of a codesign framework that recognizes the challenges involved and engages stakeholders in the design process can act as a shared learning experience and contribute to greater effectiveness and impact for participatory social-ecological scenario processes.
Abstract
Family forest owners (FFOs) control a plurality of forestland in the United States, and the decisions these landowners make have a profound impact on the landscape. Most research on FFOs ...consists of cross-sectional studies, although many of these recognize the importance of capturing long-term trends to understand whether and how FFO attitudes, behaviors, and general characteristics are changing. We use data from the 2006, 2013, and 2018 iterations of the USDA Forest Service, National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS), with a bootstrapping approach to identify significant changes across these time periods among FFOs with 4+ hectares of forestland. Total FFO hectares decreased and FFO ownerships trended downward over the study period. A decreasing proportion of FFOs owned farms or homes near their forestland, harvested timber, or received advice. Demographic shifts include an increase in age and education level from 2006 to 2018, and an increase in FFOs of color from 2006 to 2013. Overall, we find a trend towards decreased traditional engagement and management and a slight increase in owning land for its amenity values. Understanding temporal trends in FFO characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors will help policymakers and forestry professionals inform and update their outreach, technical support, and financial assistance programs.
Study Implications: Families and individuals hold more forestland than any other ownership group in the United States. We use nationwide survey data from 2006, 2013, and 2018 to determine whether and how these landowners are changing over time. The total forestland held by FFOs decreased between 2006 and 2018, and there has been a decrease in traditional forest management and engagement, such as through timber harvesting and nearby farm ownership. This study provides insights for policies, programs, and outreach and a foundation for future long-term comparisons of this group.
Billions of people around the world rely on forests to filter and provide clean drinking water. The immense value of drinking water can be a strong rationale for conserving and sustainably managing ...forests, however, people are often unaware of this forest ecosystem service of providing clean drinking water which can lead to the service’s degradation. Using a qualitative case‐study approach we conducted semi‐structured interviews in three watersheds in Michigan, USA to investigate the values and perceptions stakeholders have for forests and drinking water. Our results show that (1) stakeholders value forest’s role enhancing water quality but do not connect this forest role to providing drinking water, (2) no stakeholder groups interviewed engage in actions or behavior that explicitly address the connection between forests and drinking water, and (3) that policy makers have a large influence on the functioning of the forest provision of drinking water while nonprofit organizations are best positioned to influence conservation strategies that include this forest role. While stakeholders may not explicitly value forests for the provision of clean drinking water, there is untapped potential for incorporating this ecosystem service in future conservation strategies.
Research Impact Statement: Stakeholders do not recognize the role of forests in providing clean drinking water, thus improving awareness of this ecosystem service has untapped potential for forest conservation.
This article provides a national overview of women owning woodlands (WOW) networks and the barriers and successes they encounter. Qualitative interview data with key network leaders were used for ...increasing understanding of how these networks operate. Network leaders were all connected professionally, and all successful WOW networks involved partnerships between universities and local or regional nonprofits and state agencies. WOW networks face recruitment challenges similar to those faced by woodland owner associations, but Extension efforts and peer-to-peer learning opportunities can lead to comfortable and welcoming environments in which women can learn more about their woodland management options.
Engineering microbial biosynthetic pathways represents a compelling route to gain access to expanded chemical diversity. Carrier proteins (CPs) play a central role in biosynthesis, but the fast ...motions of CPs make their conformational dynamics difficult to capture using traditional spectroscopic approaches. Here we present a low-resource method to directly reveal carrier protein-substrate interactions. Chemoenzymatic loading of commercially available, alkyne-containing substrates onto CPs enables rapid visualization of the molecular cargo's local environment using Raman spectroscopy. This method could clarify the foundations of the chain sequestration mechanism, facilitate the rapid characterization of CPs, and enable visualization of the vectoral processing of natural products both in vitro and in vivo.
Abstract
In the United States, 58% of the 11 million family forest ownerships with at least 10 acres of forestland have at least one female owner. Within the single-owner population of landowners, ...women are the sole owners of and primary decisionmakers for 31% of ownerships. Despite the number of female family forest owners (FFOs), little research has focused on whether land-use and land-management attitudes and behaviors differ between female and male FFOs. This research uses data from the 2013 iteration of the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service’s National Woodland Owner Survey. Random forest analysis and regression techniques were used to understand what factors differentiate single-owner female and male FFOs and whether gender is a significant predictor of select land-use and land-management behaviors. Statistically significant differences between male and female landowners were found; female FFOs are more likely to have inherited land, particularly from a spouse, whereas male respondents were more likely to manage for wildlife, have a commercial timber harvest, and have undertaken management activities in the past 5 years. There are considerable similarities between the attitudes and behaviors of female and male owners, but the differences are important in understanding constraints and barriers and should be considered in the design of forestry programs and outreach.
Transportation of firewood can be a vector for invasive insect spread resulting in damage to surrounding areas. In 2016 and 2021, surveys were conducted at campgrounds around Michigan to understand ...where campers were sourcing their firewood, awareness of the ‘Do not move firewood’ campaign, knowledge of invasive insects and pests, reactions to a potential ban on bringing firewood to campgrounds, and perspective on kiln-dried firewood – all potential policy levers to reduce the spread of invasive insects. Results indicated that campaign awareness slightly decreased between the survey years, personal firewood transport has decreased, and knowledge of invasives remains low. There is an opportunity for intensifying invasive species and firewood outreach efforts, however, regulation (and enforcement) may be more effective among those who would not comply or support a ban.
Research Highlights: Ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) are a fresh approach to measuring behavior by querying the subject in real time. Typical studies of FFO behavior use self-reported survey ...data. FFOs across the United States collectively own more forested land than any other ownership category, and their actions will impact the public goods these forests provide. Thus, better measures of FFO actions are critical to understanding how these public goods may be affected. Background and Objectives: In this pilot study, we evaluated the potential of ecological momentary assessments to understand family forest owner (FFO) engagement with their woods. We sought to test recruitment, attrition, and participant reaction to the method. Materials and Methods: FFOs belong to woodland owner associations were sent the same questions weekly for a month, asking about woodland engagement. Results: Nearly 90% of participants completed all four surveys and the majority found the method reasonable. Most participants thought about their woods weekly, but a longer time period is needed to measure temporal management trends. Conclusions: This approach may yield real-time and useful information about natural resource engagement to inform conservation-based programming and outreach.
•Farmland and woodland owners (FWOs) and family forest owners (FFOs) did not differ by attitudes, ownership objectives and management activities.•Both FWOs and woodland-only FFOs value amenity ...aspects of forestland ownership over timber production ownership objectives.•Both FWOs and woodland-only FFOs have strong desires to keep their woodlands wooded and low near-term intentions of selling their forestland.•FWOs are no more (or less) likely to have undertaken forest management activities on their woodlands than woodland-only FFOs.
Much is known about the characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors of U.S. family forest owners and agricultural landowners independently. However, little is known about those who own both woodland and farmland. To address this knowledge gap, we analyze National Woodland Owner Survey data to better understand similarities and differences between family forest owners who also own farmland, and those who do not. We found that, in general, farmland and woodland owners (FWOs) are very similar to woodland-only family forest landowners (FFOs) in terms of ownership objectives, attitudes and forest management activities. However, FWOs are less likely to have under 40 acres (16.2 ha) of forestland, more likely to live on their wooded land, and more likely to own their woodlands as a place to raise their family than woodland-only FFOs. While there is potential for dual forms of outreach, technical and financial assistance, and peer networks as both an agricultural landowner and a forest landowner, forest management behaviors of FWOs do not significantly differ from that of woodland-only FFOs. Professionals from agricultural or forestry extension, soil and water conservation organizations, and others responsible for delivering both agricultural and forestry programs and policy tools could explore opportunities to connect FWOs to both types of landowner programs that can assist them with forest management.
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